


A Piece of Home

by stuffofpi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Fluff, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Reader-Insert, Self-Insert, She/her pronouns for reader, fem!reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffofpi/pseuds/stuffofpi
Summary: what was once a crush on a faraway girl had grown over time into love for a wonderful woman
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Reader
Kudos: 9





	A Piece of Home

**Author's Note:**

> request: Would you write an Iwaizumi Hajime imagine where in HS he had a massive crush on Karasuno’s female soccer captain since their second year when he met her because she is best friends with Matsukawa’s cousin who goes to Seijoh and was close with the Karasuno VB team so she went to their games and when he starts University, he finds out that she goes to the same one and they get together? {from @ofrosesandteacups}

The first time Iwaizumi Hajime ever saw you, he was mid-stretch in preparation for a small match with Karasuno and you were doubled over with fat tears streaming down your face. It caught him completely off guard. It concerned him, too, wondering if you had just been broken up with by one of the Crows seeing as you were wearing a Karasuno jacket. Though, upon closer inspection, the jacket belonged not to the Karasuno volleyball team, but to their soccer team which only served to further his confusion. It didn’t make much sense that a pretty girl from the soccer team would be supporting her school’s boy’s volleyball team that had practically no fanbase.

And then there was you – who Hajime didn’t see as having any reason to be there – straightening up with a huge grin spread across your face as you wiped at the tears with the back of your hand, chatting with a girl in front of you. The smile caught him off guard, too. He’s never seen something so open and genuine and carefree before. He may not have known you, but he instantly knew that he would do anything to see that smile again.

❁

The second time Hajime saw you was at a post-Saturday-practice dinner that he _thought_ was just going to be him, Oikawa, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa. They were at their favorite local place, a little ways out of the way from Seijoh, but Oikawa swore up and down that the walk to it was a good cool down after a hard practice rewarded by delicious food. The rest of them swore up and down that it was because Oikawa liked to flirt with the people that worked there.

Hajime was hunched over a large bowl of ramen (“You sure you can eat that much, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa teased. “Shut it, Shittykawa, I’m hungry as hell,” he grunted. “You know, Oikawa, it’s the biggest boys who have the biggest appetites, if you know what I mean,” Hanamaki said with a wink. Hajime fought back a smile at Oikawa’s squawk as he shoved Matsukawa into Hanamaki) when the high twinkle of the bell tipped off at the entrance of the door, a familiar girl prancing in with you trailing behind. Hajime noticed sweat beaded high on your forehead, the sheen casting an angelic glow about you.

Mattsun noticed you both and introduced the two of you – the girl was his cousin, Matsukawa Himeko, and a player for Seijoh’s soccer team. You were a player for Karasuno’s, the two of you meeting and immediately hitting it off at a training camp in your first year. (Though Hajime must admit that his eyes and ears only really processed what Mattsun said about you.)

You all continued to eat together. Hajime was staring at you, but he was trying his best not to. There was just something so magnetic about you that it made him feel like he had no other option than to look at you. Not like he would have wanted it any other way.

You caught his eye and grinned, secretively and warmly, lips spread across pearly teeth promising to keep the slip-up between the two of you.

Hajime’s heart jumped, shivers of electricity running down his spine.

❁

The third time was at another game, this time a soccer game that Mattsun had dragged their group out to because he had lost a bet to Himeko and didn’t want to ‘suffer’ alone. Hajime was immediately suspicious as Matsukawa was never the type to care over ‘suffering alone’. In fact, he sounded like he was mocking Oikawa and Oikawa, for once, didn’t complain about it, he only wickedly grinned in Hajime’s direction. For the life of him, Hajime couldn’t understand what they knew that he didn’t but then he was being distracted by the cheers and jeers alike erupting from the spectators.

It was easy to spot you, Himeko having told them to be on the lookout for her jersey number and yours. You guys had worn matching numbers since your first year, at first a coincidence that birthed a wonderful friendship but now a continued tradition. Karasuno’s black and orange looked incredible against your skin, the colors emboldened by the confidence and ease in which you carried yourself while thrown into the depths of a game’s battlefield. You had played wonderfully, effortlessly supporting and scoring goals and cheering on your teammates. You had all of the qualities he would expect of a second-year vice captain. Stunning and regal and light-hearted all at once. Simply incredible.

Hajime didn’t notice, but when you had walked over to greet their group with Himeko, Oikawa, Makki, and Mattsun all had sly grins spread over their lips.

❁

The fourth time was months after your third year had started. There hadn’t been any games to attend – a fact Hajime lamented – and so there hadn’t been any reason, any convenient excuse, for Hajime to see you. Yet he didn’t need to see you to still have his mind occupied by you. The two of you had had so few interactions, most of them short and yet so incredibly, _impossibly_ sweet. They were all he could think about, the allure that you offered. And, he didn’t know it, but it was much the same of how you felt.

You were in the hallway outside of the tournament gym waiting with Himeko to congratulate them on their successful game. Hajime was shocked to see you, pausing slightly in his steps before trying to hide a grin and the tips of his burning ears. You smiled and Hajime forgot all about trying to hide his own as he easily returned yours, not giving it a thought beyond instinct.

You congratulated him on his game and he congratulated you on your elected captainship though Oikawa swooped in and rode on his congratulations. Hajime would have been mad if he wasn’t content simply being able to talk to this magnetic girl once again.

An easy casual friendship blossomed from then on. Whenever Himeko was with them, you were sure to be there, too, magnetic smile and all. You all had started to make it a tradition to attend every game that you could. Because you were from a different school – a rival school, no less – it was harder for them to attend your games and for you to attend theirs but you did every chance you could. Because of the physical distance, it was harder for Hajime to grow closer to you but he was more than happy being able to say hi to you every once in a while than not at all.

❁

The next time he saw you, third year had blinked by in a blur and suddenly you all were college first years, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and nervous, too. You had all been too busy with your respective sports and worrying over college entrance exams to really do much of anything besides an occasional congratulatory or comforting text for when they were due. So Hajime was beyond speechless to hear your laugh halfway across the globe. He had fully stopped in his tracks, desperately trying to decide if he was crazy and hearing things or just incredibly lucky that his long time crush was here with him in a foreign land.

“Y/n?” He called in disbelief, still trying to wrap his head around that you being here at _his_ school was even a possibility.

Your smile dropped just the slightest, confusion taking over as you looked from your conversation to find the source of your name, not many people knowing it as you had only been there for a little less than a week. And then it fell completely when you spotted Hajime, his own disbelief overriding your previous emotions. “Iwaizumi?” You replied, quiet and shy, not sure that you were really seeing the beautiful boy in front of you.

“No way,” he said, a blinding grin that you had never seen completely taking over his features.

Your friend gave you a knowing smile. “I’ll leave you two alone,” they said, patting your shoulder as they left.

You didn’t have time to dwell on that odd smile before you were running over to Iwaizumi, meeting him halfway and lightly punching him in the arm. “You dog! I cannot believe you didn’t tell me you were coming to America!”

He laughed, playfully rubbing at the spot, “I could say the same thing about you.”

“Even the dog part?” You raised an eyebrow.

“After that punch? _Especially_ the dog part.”

You laughed, still shoving him in retaliation before locking him in a huge embrace. Hajime was stunned. Though you shared a handful of friends and surely were friends yourself, you two had never hugged quite like this. There were more awkward side-hugs and weak high fives than Hajime cared to admit, but nothing quite as solid and grounding and purely wonderful as this. You almost pulled away, worried that he didn’t like the hug, and then Hajime was squeezing you back, holding on for dear life.

You two stayed like that for a while, until the sun had started to set. You were two friends longing for home and for each other and you couldn’t tell which one felt further away.

❁

There was nothing like being strangers together in a foreign world to bring two friends closer. Before, you were both polite with secret glances and harbored feelings on the side. Now, you had no filter with obvious glances and harbored feelings growing exponentially. The friendship blooming between you two was natural and anchoring and dangerous as Hajime could feel himself falling deeper and deeper. To think that you used to be just a girl with a charming smile he had a schoolboy crush on and now you were a woman with a contagious laugh he had fallen helplessly in love with.

There were many nights where you two stayed up together whether it was studying in the library until closing; kicking a soccer ball around and laughing at each other; talking about anything and everything until your roommates begged you to shut up; bumping a volleyball while shouting the scientific names for anatomy; snorting loudly at cheesy movies and crunching away at burnt popcorn.

It was the quiet things, the small things, the non-monumental things that had Hajime seeing you in a brighter light. It was the way that you were his personal piece of home.

It was the way that he was yours.

You were sprawled out on his bed, papers and textbooks scattered around you, pen clenched in your hand as you drummed your other fingers. He had been hunched over his desk, staring and yet, no matter how hard he tried, not absorbing what was in front of him. He glanced over to you, his frown instantly melting into a small smile at the way your eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“You remind me of home,” he said, gently and suddenly and yet naturally. He hadn’t meant to say it, only think it, but the flash in your eyes made it worth it.

“I do?” He nodded. “In what way?”

_In the way that you make me feel safe, in the way that I feel grounded with you, in the way that I ache for you, in the way that I love you._

Hajime looked you in the eyes, searching for what you were really asking. He thought that by now there was no way that you could surprise each other, that you both were each other’s best friend. But he still couldn’t tell what you were asking him. He followed his heart like he so often does with you. “In the way that I’d always like to return to you.”

It was a long moment of just looking at each other, Hajime feeling as if he might not ever breathe again, you feeling as if you could fly. “I didn’t know you were so good with words,” you grinned. “Oikawa always did call you a brute.” And the disbelief of the first day was back before Hajime was throwing a highlighter at you. You laughed, dodging it, coming back to return his gaze softly. “Yes,” you said quietly.

He furrowed his brows. “Yes to what?”

“I’ll be your home.”

“You have been,” he admitted.

“Since when?”

He grinned. “Since second year.”

**Author's Note:**

> check out my tumblr, @more-stuff-of-pi :) i take requests! i also tried a new style with this one and i really loved it!!!
> 
> what sport do you think iwa bby would play if not v-ball? i think he would rock b-ball or rugby/american football


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